Fearing he will lose his inheritance when he hears from Katie, he seizes on a scheme to pass off a struggling actress (“Once and Again’s” Julia Whelan) as Katie, hoping to secure access to his wife’s estate before she dies. This comes as bad news to Laura’s leech of a husband, Dylan (Adrian Paul), who needs his wife’s money to finance his gambling habit. The Shining, gothic horror novel by Stephen King, first published in 1977. To shun a person consequently isolates them at the very point when they most need support. Now out in the modern world, she seeks to reconnect with her birth mother, Laura (Stringfield), a wealthy socialite who early on is presented with a fatal cancer diagnosis. Shunning is thus a feature of a broader spectrum of aggressive behaviors, including accusation, sabotage, investigation and other efforts to control or remove the person from the group. Leclerc plays Katie, who was “shunned” by the Amish community that raised her in the first film. It’s also enough of a stand-alone story one needn’t have thrilled to part one to join the buggy ride.

To the rest of the world, this Hallmark Channel movie derived from the second of Lewis’ “The Heritage of Lancaster County” books is distinguished by possessing slightly more edge than the network’s standard fare, and a solid tandem in Katie Leclerc (“Switched at Birth”) and Sherry Stringfield (was “ER” really that long ago?) as its leads.

Talk about the ways in which favoritism-whether displayed by a relative or teacher or someone else-can be helpful or harmful to children.

For the hardy few to whom “Beverly Lewis’ The Confession” really is the much-anticipated sequel to “The Shunning,” its arrival is no doubt good news. The Shunning Discussion Questions Katie considers that being Mam's favorite was both a blessing and a curse.

The shunning book